Related papers: Dynamic phase transition induced by active molecul…

One of the greatest challenges in contemporary condensed matter physics is to ascertain whether the formation of glasses from liquids is fundamentally thermodynamic or dynamic in origin. While the thermodynamic paradigm has dominated…

External fields can decidedly alter the free energy landscape of soft materials and can be exploited as a powerful tool for the assembly of targeted nanostructures and colloidal materials. Here, we use computer simulations to demonstrate…

We investigate the heterogeneous dynamics in a model, where chemical gelation and glass transition interplay, focusing on the dynamical susceptibility. Two independent mechanisms give raise to the correlations, which are manifested in the…

In living cells, molecular motors create activity that enhances the diffusion of particles throughout the cytoplasm, and not just ones attached to the motors. We demonstrate initial steps toward creating artificial cells that mimic this…

Breakthrough experiments have newly explored the fascinating physics of dipolar quantum droplets and supersolids. The recent realization of dipolar mixtures opens further intriguing possibilities. We show that under rather general…

Biological transport is supported by collective dynamics of enzymatic molecules that are called motor proteins or molecular motors. Experiments suggest that motor proteins interact locally via short-range potentials. We investigate the…

Motility-induced phase separation (MIPS) is a well-studied nonequilibrium collective phenomenon observed in active particles. Recently, there has been growing interest in how coupling the self-propulsion of active particles to chemical…

We present a theory for the interaction between active particles and a passive flexible membrane. By explicitly solving for the pressure exerted by the active particles, we show that they reduce the membrane tension and bending modulus and…

We review recent developments in structural-dynamical phase transitions in trajectory space. An open question is how the dynamic facilitation theory of the glass transition may be reconciled with thermodynamic theories that posit a…

This is a short survey on recent results obtained by the authors on dynamical phase transitions of interacting particle systems. We consider particle systems with exclusion dynamics, but it is conjectured that our results should hold for a…

The cytoplasm and biomembranes in biological cells contain large numbers of proteins that cyclically change their shapes. They are molecular machines that can function as molecular motors or carry out many other tasks in the cell. We…

Much of our mechanistic understanding of the functions of biological macromolecules is based on static structural experiments, which can be modelled either as single structures or conformational ensembles. While these provide us with…

Biomolecular condensates are formed via liquid-liquid phase separation of proteins, often together with nucleic acids, typically driven by interactions between low-affinity binding sites. The computational study of such condensates that…

Phase separation is the thermodynamic process that explains how droplets form in multicomponent fluids. These droplets can provide controlled compartments to localize chemical reactions, and reactions can also affect the droplets' dynamics.…

Driven granular systems readily form glassy phases at high particle volume fractions and low driving amplitudes. We use computer simulations of a driven granular glass to evidence a re-entrance melting transition into a fluid state, which,…

We propose a comprehensive dynamical model for cooperative motion of self-propelled particles, e.g., flocking, by combining well-known elements such as velocity-alignment interactions, spatial interactions, and angular noise into a unified…

Phase separation, the spontaneous segregation of density, is a ubiquitous phenomenon observed across diverse physical and biological systems. Within a crowd of motile elements, active phase separation emerges from the interplay of activity…

Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…

Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…

We introduce a simulation strategy to consistently couple continuum biomembrane dynamics to the motion of discrete biological macromolecules residing within or on the membrane. The methodology is used to study the diffusion of integral…